Suzette Martinez Standring: The secret to marriage

Wednesday

More than 50 percent of first marriages dissolve in divorce. With a 60 percent failure rate, second marriages are no better. Can marital longevity and happiness truly co-exist?

More than 50 percent of first marriages dissolve in divorce. With a 60 percent failure rate, second marriages are no better. Can marital longevity and happiness truly co-exist?

The ones to ask are longtime married couples. Twenty-seven of them are featured in a new book, “Secrets of Great Marriages: Real Truth from Real Couples About Lasting Love” by Charlie Bloom, M.S.W. and Linda Bloom, L.C.S.W., who are psychotherapists and marriage counselors. The authors, themselves married for 35 years, also wrote “101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married.”

For their two-year study on what creates longtime married success, the Blooms chose couples whose marriages were alive with friendship, love and passion and who had been married for a minimum of 15 years.

Personalities and challenges varied greatly, but in dealing with each other, they all shared the following in common:

• The recognition that “the happier my partner is, the happier I’m going to be.”
• No grudge holding. Disappointments and upsets were quickly managed whenever they arose.
• Self-responsibility. Partners were willing to consider their own part in creating conflict, instead of being defensive or heaping blame.
• Honesty — consistently and sensitively expressed.
• Shared pleasure — bringing happiness to each other’s life and frequently engaging in acts of service to each other.
• Gratitude. Even if one is not naturally optimistic, there was a willingness to cultivate a more positive outlook, which improved the quality of one’s personal life and worldview.

In marriage, probably the greatest threat is the push-pull of whose wants, desires or career is more important. The key is to take great pleasure in each other’s company, but to not derive one’s sense of wholeness just from the relationship, and each story shows how this was accomplished.

However, some marriages cannot be saved in the face of “deal breakers,” such as chronic addiction or physical or emotional abuse that can make a partnership intolerable.

For many, getting married or remarried is risky business. Some believe success is rooted solely in finding “the right one,” or delaying marriage to reach maturity first, or lucking into a magical chemistry with another. Some feel defeated by divorce while others are willing to take another chance after having learned from their mistakes.

“Secrets of Great Marriages” is a road map to an inspired relationship with practical advice from long-time married couples. Marriage is not a fairy tale, but a happily ever after is definitely possible.